Hon Russell Pulver MCIArb

`Arbitrator and mediator with seventeen years as a United States federal administrative law judge and nineteen years in private practice representing maritime, aviation, energy and casualty underwriters, including Underwriters at Lloyd’s, the Institute of London Underwriters, and excess underwriters in the United States and Europe. Judicial experience includes adjudication under federal environmental, energy, aviation, transportation and maritime statutes. Practice included offshore drilling and rig-servicing helicopter casualties in Australia, Venezuela, the North Sea and the Arabian Gulf, and offshore vessel acquisition and reflagging in support of Saudi oil operations. Over 400 mediations conducted, and a standing appointment as neutral arbitrator on the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals Neutrals Panel. Proceedings conducted through interpreters in sixteen languages. Judge Pulver holds a J.D. from Tulane University Law School, one of the few American law schools to teach the civil law comparatively alongside the common law. His civil-law coursework included civil-law property, civil-law negotiable instruments, and successions — the civil-law counterpart to the common law of wills and estates — together with Roman law, in which he earned the highest grade in his class as he did in Marine Insurance and Tugs and Towage. He went on to practise as a common-law trial attorney across a dozen states. His later service as a United States federal Administrative Law Judge was, in procedural character, closer to the civil-law tradition — proceedings turned largely on documentary evidence, records, and depositions, with oral testimony in support. The result is a decision-maker equally at home in the civil-law and common-law traditions — a formation directly relevant to international arbitration, where parties, counsel, and co-arbitrators regularly come from both.
• Former United States federal Administrative Law Judge with seventeen years of adjudicatory experience.
• Nineteen years representing Lloyd’s, London-market, maritime, aviation, energy, and casualty insurers.
• More than 400 mediations conducted; MCIArb; DIAC Reserve List of Arbitrators.
• Maritime, aviation, energy, environmental, insurance, reinsurance, product-liability, and investor-state experience.
• Experience with vessel arrests, maritime liens, Coast Guard and NTSB investigations, offshore casualties, and technically complex expert evidence.
• First-hand investigations aboard vessels, drilling rigs, and production platforms; international matters across multiple regions.
• Proceedings conducted through interpreters in sixteen languages; available under institutional and ad hoc rules.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE

• Maritime and admiralty — collision, personal injury and death, longshore and harbor workers, marine insurance, tugs and towage, vessel acquisition, registry and reflagging
• Aviation — hull and liability, lessor and operator disputes, offshore helicopter operations, aviation safety and whistleblower matters
• Energy — offshore drilling casualties, energy reorganization and nuclear safety, pipeline safety, marine energy claims, transition and renewables
• Insurance and reinsurance — coverage, London market and Lloyd’s practice, cross-border programmes
• Environmental — clean air, water, hazardous substances and solid waste; transboundary and cross-border matters
• Product liability, employment and commercial disputes